Monochrome design: what is its feature and how best to apply it?

Monochrome design is when one color is taken as a basis, and the rest of the palette is built by creating shades, changing the brightness and saturation of the base color. Based on the description, it may seem that such a design will be too simple, even boring and monotonous. But no: there are advantages here, and we’ll talk about them. 

Win-win choice

One color, plus its shades. Black, dark grey, grey, light grey, white (same with other colours). The color scheme is ready. 

When choosing colors, it is important that together they look coordinated, harmonious, and whole. And here the important advantage of monochrome design is that in this situation it is impossible to choose unsuccessful color combinations. The one who develops the design will not miss, regardless of his experience. The palette will always look cool and correct from the standpoint of creating a visual image. 

Balanced Design

Monochrome design, as a rule, is free of unnecessary details. Thanks to this, it seems that everything is always in order, everything is in its place, there are no elements that “scream” inappropriately and distract attention from the main thing. Such orderliness is attractive, as if it assures that the brand has all its affairs in order.

Quick contact with the consumer

The resulting balanced brand design will help you find contact with the consumer in a shorter period of time. 

For example, a potential client visited a website. I looked around and immediately appreciated the orderliness and, let’s say, proud restraint. It's already nice to be on the page. And then he has the opportunity, without unnecessary burden, to get acquainted with the main content, which will immerse him in the atmosphere of the brand: it will reveal the idea, explain the benefits of cooperation, and make a good offer.

Easy adaptation for a consistent style

Due to a clear set of colors and elements, and simplicity of execution, a monochrome design can easily be extended to any brand media. And this can also be done without error. 

Simple shapes are welcome on the logo, because it is often placed on a small scale and it can be difficult to see the details. Using monochrome, you can correctly place the required amount of information on a website, and create a consistent visual on social networks. Printed products: flyers, posters, banners, labels, packaging - will look especially stylish and, due to the different composition of materials, will reveal the brand design more interestingly.

The result will be a single and complete corporate style, which will increase the number of points of contact with the consumer, will help customers remember the brand for a long time, easily recognize it in any place and situation.

It is indeed possible to develop a design in a monochrome style, gaining time from the long selection of a palette and elaboration of elements, and get a good result with a claim to status.

And here are some final tips that will help make the monochrome look worthy:

Two to four tones:

You can create many shades for each color, but this is not always necessary when creating a corporate identity - it is enough to assign one or two shades to the background, elements, and text.

Monochrome images:

any photographs and illustrations will become part of the corporate identity if they are processed in monochrome style: black and white, sepia and the like in accordance with the base color.

Bright accent:

Sometimes a contrasting color will be added to the usual color scheme - it may not be a permanent tool and can be used on certain media or in certain situations - CTA buttons, a promotion, important news for customers, a special offer.

Highlight:

Using the selected shades, you can divide information on media: website screens, sections on a social network, types of services or products (if there are not enough basic tones or you need to visually separate two product lines, you can introduce a second monochrome palette).

In general, so that you can save your time and be guaranteed to receive high quality corporate identity, the Veonix team is always happy to offer their assistance in creating creative designs.